William Rowan Browne 1884-1975

William Rowan Browne
was born on 11 December 1884 at Lislea, County Derry, Ireland,
the sixth of eight children born to James and Henrietta Browne,
National School teachers. On both sides he descended from families
long-established in that country though, by his own account, without
particular eminence for learning or public service. His paternal
grandfather, who had fought the rebels in 1798 as a yeoman volunteer,
he presumed was a farmer; Henrietta's father was an architect
and contractor chiefly concerned with the building of country
churches in Ulster. Throughout his life, Browne stayed true to
these loyalist, devout Church of Ireland (Anglican) origins.

From his parents' school young William Browne moved in 1897 to
the Academical Institution at Coleraine where he distinguished
himself and, rather unexpectedly in view of his later lack of
interest in sport, played in the Rugby 1st XV. With first place
at matriculation for all Ireland, the Clothworkers' Scholarship
from his school as well as a Junior Exhibition, Browne entered
Trinity College Dublin in October 1903 intending to read a classical
Arts course. These hopes were dashed when he was found to be suffering
from tuberculosis; progress of the disease forced him to withdraw
before completing a term.

In those days long sea voyages were commonly prescribed for British
sufferers of tuberculosis. Some responded to the 'treatment',
and Australia has good reason to be grateful for this particular
medical fashion. The debt we owe such enforced immigrants deserves
the attention of some student of Australian culture. Among geologists,
poor health gave us men like W. B. Clarke,
Edgeworth David, and
Walter Howchin. Howchin,
in fact, reached Adelaide so afflicted that he had to be carried
ashore, yet survived to within a couple of months of his 94th
birthday. Browne loved to recall that example and, one suspects,
hoped to do better. His sudden death in Sydney on 1 September
1975 after a life here with remarkably robust health robbed him
by just three years of that triumph; but in that long life he
became the foremost exponent of Australian geology to the generation
which succeeded Edgeworth David.

Browne set out for Australia in February 1904, and by the time
he reached Sydney the tuberculosis was so far advanced he went
directly to a private sanitorium at Leura in the Blue Mountains.
There, remarkably, his health soon began to improve. After five
months he was allowed to leave and take work at Inverell coaching
a lad for matriculation. Early in 1906 he moved to Wollogorang,
a grazing property near Goulburn, as tutor to the Chisholm children.
There Browne learned to ride and to love the open spaces of Australia.
Towards the end of 1906 he was considered well enough to commence
studies in the University of Sydney.

At the matriculation examinations of 1906, Browne secured both
the Cooper (classics) and Barker (mathematics) Scholarships. He
had planned to continue the sort of course abandoned four years
earlier, but a friend suggested he might try Science rather than
Arts. Browne did so. As a science student he could develop his
mathematics but the rules required him to read natural science
subjects. For a fourth subject after mathematics, chemistry, and
physics, he chose geology. He knew nothing of it but the professor
was said to be good value and the excursions great fun; such deep
considerations determined a career.

Professor Edgeworth David, as usual, lectured to the First Year
geology class of 1907 and lived up to Browne's expectations. Encouraged
by the award of the University Prize for Geology and the prize
for fieldwork, Browne decided to continue with the subject but
had to do so without benefit of professor. Late in 1907 David
went off, ostensibly to spend the long vacation voyaging south
with the Shackleton expedition, but managing to over-stay his
original leave by a year. During that absence care of the department
devolved upon W. G. Woolnough,
a man in some ways the very antithesis of his chief. A bit unbending
and not immediately inspiring as a lecturer, Woolnough nevertheless
was a scholar with a deep and critical concern for research as
well as a sincere interest in students. His influence on the young
Browne was little less than that of David. Browne went on to take
the prizes for the Second and Third Year courses in geology, graduating
early in 1910 with honours class I in both geology and mathematics.
For geology he shared the University Medal with his fellow student
and friend A. B. Walkom.

When Walkom secured the only geological post then available, a
junior demonstratorship in the Sydney department, Browne looked
to his other subject. The mathematics course had included lectures
in astronomy, and thus experienced, he became First Assistant
to G. F. Dodwell, South
Australian Government Astronomer, at the Adelaide Observatory.
Duties there were mainly routine-observing time-stars with a transit
telescope and measuring earth-quake records from a Milne seismograph,
though the latter exercises on one occasion were enlivened by
Dodwell's cow chewing part of a seismogram Browne had set out
to dry on the observatory fence. An expedition to Bruni Island,
Tasmania, in April-May of 1910 brought unexpected variety. On
the initiative of Pietro Baracchi,
Victorian Government Astronomer, arrangements had been made to
observe a total eclipse of the sun; Browne went along with Dodwell
to help. In fact, the event was seen only at Queenstown, normally
about the wettest spot in Tasmania and quite by chance on his
way back to Adelaide Browne encountered a man who had witnessed
it. The observer was induced to write an account and to make a
sketch. He did better, procuring the negative of a photograph
taken at totality. Thus provided, the Adelaide astronomers were
able to report something more than a journey to set up instruments
for nothing.

Browne's career as an astronomer came to an end early in 1911
when David offered him the junior demonstratorship vacated by
W. N. Benson, who had
won a scholarship to Cambridge. By the end of the year Browne
and Walkom had completed a paper on the rocks of the Pokolbin
district, an area they visited first on an excursion in 1907.
It was the first of many works each was to publish on the Hunter
Valley region and on problems of Carboniferous geology.

In 1912 Browne returned to Adelaide, this time to the university
in locum tenens for Douglas Mawson,
then lecturer in mineralogy and petrology, who had been granted
leave to resume exploration in Antarctica. The call gave Browne
opportunity to see more metamorphic rocks and, incidentally, to
make what he once described only half in jest as his greatest
discovery, a student by the name of Tilley. This young man responded
warmly to the newcomer. Tilley acted as Browne's assistant in
the field at Victor Harbour; eventually he followed Browne to
Sydney. There in due course he took a degree with University Medals
in both geology and chemistry. Tilley's attachment to Browne is
tribute enough to the young teacher's quality. They remained life-long
friends.

Woolnough's appointment in 1913 to the foundation chair of geology
at the newly-established University of Western Australia left
a vacancy in Sydney that was filled by promotion of L. A. Cotton.
Browne, in turn, moved to the tenured post of assistant lecturer,
and thereafter his career was firmly linked to the University
of Sydney. In 1916 he became lecturer and by 1923 had the title
Assistant Professor, an honour which Browne once claimed came
to all lecturers who completed ten years of trouble-free service,
though one can think of exceptions to that dismissive explanation.
Until 1924 he taught mainly petrology but with the succession
of Cotton to David's chair, Browne's duties expanded. There was
not only the work that came the way of a second-in-command but
also new courses in agricultural geology and even economic geography.
When new staff was found for these subjects Browne concentrated
on teaching Australian stratigraphy (generously interpreted) and
general petrology. He retired in December 1949 with the rank of
Reader.

For the quarter-century after the retirement of Edgeworth David,
Browne really led the university department of geology in Sydney,
not indeed as professor-others occupied that office-but by strength
of intellect. Browne was the man with information and ideas. Students
turned to him as their leader in science but first he had to be
discovered, Browne made no particular effort to advertize himself
or attract a following. Indeed, a student's first impression would
often enough suggest the reverse. To .the beginner Browne could
appear formal, even stern, the model of a teacher who stands no
nonsense. But the awed respect thus commanded was usually in this
case soon replaced by a genuine admiration for the quality of
Browne's lectures. What seemed the driest subjects came alive
when touched by his mastery of organization, his fluent economy
with words, and an apparently endless store of gentle, if rather
astringent quips and apt anecdotes. The student soon found also
that Browne was more than a gifted exponent of information from
textbooks. In Australian stratigraphy for instance, one discovered
on consulting the library that Browne himself was the authority
and that the class was being led to knowledge not yet imprisoned
by print.

Impressive as Browne was in the lecture room, it was on excursions
he seemed most in his element. If the outfit, apart from well-worn
boots and puttees of uncertain but motheaten antiquity, made few
concessions to the field, the wearer certainly did. Many students
first discovered there that the stern teacher was, in fact, a
remarkably approachable and patient man. Browne made excursions
memorable; even those who have long since forgotten the science
he taught them still treasure the jokes and stories he would tell
by the campfire. They will hardly forget, either, the cracking
pace he set on traverses or the fact that nothing seemed to escape
his notice. All was carefully recorded in a note-book though,
as one came to know him better, one wondered why he took such
exemplary trouble. His extraordinary memory seemed to grant facility
to recall almost every line he had read and every place seen.
Localities not visited for years could be described to the last
detail; anyone seeking some outcrop was likely to find Browne's
recollected description a sure guide.

For all his tidy-mindedness Browne managed to work in surroundings
that appeared reassuringly confused. His field books may be models
of careful record but his office notes were more often than not
jotted on any piece of paper that chanced to be handy; tied or
pinned in bundles they became his files. Thin-sections found their
way into a multitude of old tobacco tins that served the place
of more orthodox storage. It may have seemed chaotic but Browne
knew where to find things. Those files too reveal an unexpected
facet of the man who was so fluent in speech and in his published
writings. Draft manuscripts full of deletions and substitutions
bear witness to the painstaking attention that lay behind what
seemed like native skill. For Browne, the written presentation
of his researches demanded every bit as much care as the making
and recording of his observations. Among Australian geologists,
he was a rare stylist.

The pattern of Browne's original investigations owes much to the
influence of his teachers, David and Woolnough. Browne's debt
to both men is particularly evident in the period to about 1934.
Thereafter petrological studies, to which he had been guided by
Woolnough, play a diminished role. For the first 15 years of this
later period, Browne was largely occupied in realizing David's
book, the work that now serves as a splendid memorial to two great
scientists who devoted their careers to an adopted homeland. The
last phase of Browne's scientific work occupied the years of his
so-called retirement and was concerned largely with problems of
Quaternary geology.

The Adelaide visit of 1912-13 gave Browne his first sight of Broken
Hill, a district he was soon to know well. At the invitation of
E. C. Andrews, Government
Geologist of New South Wales from 1920 to 1931, Browne joined
survey parties there during the university vacations of 1918,
1919, and 1920. Browne was assigned the petrological study of
country away from the line of lode, work on the rocks associated
with the main ore-bodies being entrusted to F. L. Stillwell.
Their reports, with opposed interpretations on a no. of points,
appeared as appendices to Andrews's memoir, a classic in Australian
geology. Browne's contribution formed the basis of 'The petrological
evolution of the Willyama complex,' a thesis for which he received
the Sydney DSc with University Medal in 1922. The argument with
Stillwell continued for years, both men holding tenaciously to
their views. If Stillwell was no match in the cut-and-thrust of
debate for the articulate, quick-witted Browne, the honours must
now be rated even. Both were distinguished men who deserve respect
for their intelligent contributions to problems which even today
have not been resolved.

Browne's first published work on a metamorphic terrain, however,
came from his introduction to the Monaro region of New South Wales
by Woolnough. Those parts were to attract Browne for the rest
of his life. Part I of his account of the Cooma district is dated
1914, 30 busy years passed before readers had the next instalment.
The first paper in particular is a landmark among Australian metamorphic
studies. Rocks of the Cooma area had long been regarded as being
of Precambrian age, mainly on the traditional grounds that such
metamorphic materials must be of high antiquity. Through his discovery
of graptolites in the lower-grade slates, Browne demonstrated
that that part, at least, of the complex could be no older than
late Ordovician in age.

David's discovery in 1914 of signs of late Palaeozoic glaciation
in the Seaham area of the Hunter Valley led Browne, and others,
to investigate problems of the age of the glacial beds. At first
thought to be Permian, Browne's work near Maitland showed these
strata to be of Carboniferous age. Subsequently study of the glacigene
products led him northwards into the New England region. Eruptive
rocks of late Palaeozoic age, like those described in the Pokolbin
paper, continued to attract Browne during the 1920s. He was particularly
fascinated by the phenomena of secondary mineral-adjustment evident
in these volcanic materials, an interest that led also to valuable
studies of the Prospect intrusion near Sydney and Permian lavas
at Port Kembla. Browne's researches in this field broke new ground
for Australian petrology.

While Andrews led the New South Wales Geological Survey, Browne
maintained a close connection with the group. He was able thusto visit many remote parts of the state in the company of Survey
officers and had unrestricted access to the collections of the
Mining Museum in Sydney, then the responsibility of his friend
G. W. Card, a petrographer for whom he had great respect. The
fruits of this experience can be seen in Browne's presidential
address of 1929 to the Linnean Society of New South Wales. His
theme was the relation between crustal movements and igneous action
in New South Wales to the close of Palaeozoic time. It is a pioneer's
synthesis, much of it based on original observations. If the germ
of the idea came from David and Andrews, Browne made it his own,
refining and polishing the scheme on a no. of later occasions.
Perhaps even greater petrological interest attaches to his presidential
address of 1933 to the local Royal Society. There, in his consideration
of the products of post-Palaeozoic igneous action in New South
Wales, Browne recognized the existence of contrasted types of
basalts thereby anticipating concepts of tholeiites and alkali
basalts made fashionable by others in the past couple of decades.

To this period also belongs a paper on batholiths (or bathyliths
as Browne insisted, confident of etymology) that continues to
be quoted in textbooks. Its interest lies in the elegant exposition
of time-relations between tectonic action and emplacement of granitic
bodies and the criteria whereby such relations can be recognized.
In addition, subjects as remote from igneous and metamorphic petrology
as soils, erosion, and physiography were also considered in original
researches during those early years. If we now see them as expressions
of a concern that was to dominate the last phase of Browne's research,
they also demonstrate the breadth and versatility that must have
led David to look on him as his heir in science.

Anyone familiar with Browne's own achievements must regard the
circumstance that he is most widely known for another's book,
The Geology of the Commonwealth of Australia, as perhaps
unfortunate. Browne never shared that view. He was a man of intense
loyalties. Loyalty to local societies kept him publishing in their
journals rather than seeking wider attention abroad. But above
all it was a loyalty to Edgeworth David, for him ever The Professor,
that coloured the whole of Browne's scientific life. Nowhere did
that find happier expression for Browne than in the work for which
he claimed only that credit due to an assistant. The sight or
sound of references to 'David's Geology . . . by W. R.
Browne' was a sure means of rousing his ire. Browne maintained
staunchly the book was David's; he had the privilege merely to
realize what The Professor began. Indeed, the introduction to
the book is so packed with acknowledgments to others that an uninformed
reader might take Browne at face value. Therein lies another story:
some colleagues who had helped David felt slighted by the generality
of his thanks in the Explanatory Notes... he published
in 1932. Browne decided to do the job thoroughly.

David had long planned to compile a Geology of Australia and
after his retirement in 1924 tried to settle down to the task.
But other matters, not least the unfortunate business of Precambrian
'fossils', kept getting in the way. The book was to have been
a sort of cooperative venture for which many friends and colleagues,
Browne among them, were asked to prepare essays on particular
topics. But as material accumulated, David's health declined.
By 1930 Browne was devoting many free hours to the work. David,
meanwhile, had resolved to concentrate on finishing the geological
map and issuing it with explanatory notes, a decision that may
have expressed a doubt in his capacity to complete the book. At
the time however, David kept counsel but by March of 1934 he had
to admit defeat. A few words - 'Oh, by the way, Browne, I want
you to finish the book' - determined Browne's work for the next
15 years. Within a matter of months, David was dead and Browne,
despite his previous involvement, was left with no clear idea
of what had been done or of what remained.

In November 1935, the New South Wales Government having bought
the manuscript from the David estate, formally asked Browne to
complete and edit the work. It came to him as bundles of paper
in dozens of cardboard boxes. A few parts, those sent in by colleagues,
seemed reasonably presentable but David's contribution was scattered
throughout as miscellaneous jottings. For many chapters there
was no sustained writing at all. With no way of estimating how
long the task would take, a period of two years was agreed upon
though this was soon recognized as inadequate. On secondment from
the university, Browne gave all his time to the work. With no
sight of an end, the government in 1939 reviewed its support but
decided to continue and, indeed, to add the services of a graduate
assistant and a draughtsman. By 1941, however, the Lands Department
could no longer spare the draughtsman and as the war seemed likely
to continue, Browne suggested he resume academic duties until
hostilities ceased. Nevertheless, work on the book continued as
a spare-time occupation with the result that by the end of 1944
writing was practically completed. Browne then sought and was
granted studyleave (the only 'sabbatical' he ever took) to make
a comprehensive revision. That done, the government committee
in charge of the work resolved in 1946 that Browne personally
should deliver the typescript to the London publishers (Messrs
Edward Arnold & Co.) with whom David had made an agreement
some 20 years earlier. Galleys had been checked and the first
page proofs coming through when Browne returned to Sydney in May
1948. The rest of the work on proofs, the making of an index and
so forth were done while he carried a full load of teaching and
supervision. Browne had already retired from the University when
the book finally appeared in July 1950 in an edition limited by
the no. of sets of the map kept since 1932 to form part of
the work.

The long-awaited book, the first ever to draw together the scattered
experience of Australian geology, quickly went out of print. No
doubt most copies went to libraries but its present rarity suggests
that those who bought copies in 1950 have had little inclination
to part with them, despite the considerable growth of our geological
knowledge since. That growth, which may well have taken the subject
beyond the grasp of one individual, underlines the special quality
of this book-the distillation largely of one man's thought and
experience. Future historians of Australian geology will find
it a rich and complex quarry. Any work so long in the making could
scarcely be other than complex. One perceptive reviewer in 1951
expressed wonder that the labours of two men so opposed in temperament
as the classical is to the romatic should have been fused so harmoniously.
If few signs of the romantic Davidian resonance survive in the
generally austere prose, that is hardly strange but the fusion
is there, in matters of arrangement and even argument. One has
only to look back to the Explanatory Notes of 1932 to see
how Browne followed David's plan. Likewise the models uniting
stratigraphy, tectonism, and igneous action owe something to David
in their conception, but the refinement of the synthesis was due
to Browne. His recognition of the Benambran and Bowning revolutions,
for instance, served to complete the David/Andrews picture of
orogenic divisions in the Palaeozoic history of southeast Australia.
The words 'edited and much supplemented by W. R. Browne . . .'
on the title-pages of the book fail to inform the reader as to
the nature of Browne's contribution. Browne had to write David's
Geology...-and he did it rnagnificently.

It was during the period when Browne made several visits interstate,
chiefly to resolve problems of geological correlation which had
become intractible due to the parochial attitudes of State officialdom
and academic schools, that many young geologists first became
closely acquainted with him and experienced the delight of meeting
with a man of high intellect and culture, with the charm of a
sensibility that his erudition and seniority failed to conceal.
In achieving correlations across State boundaries, Browne had
to deal with many so-called 'boundary faults' where the same formation
was regarded as being of a certain age in one State, but different
in the other, the opposing views being 'official' as the States
were very jealous of their territorial rights. While David had
dealt with such problems by royal decree, Browne achieved his
results by reasoned argument and sensitive arbitration, even where,
as sometimes happened, his own prior views could be called in
question. If Griffith Taylor,
in an atmosphere of vicious political antagonism, had shown us
Australia as a continent geographically, and David's rhetoric
had done the same for geology in his Explanatory Notes, Browne's
scientific arguments and enormous capacity for detail paved the
way for much subsequent collaborative work on Australian regional
and tectonic geology-a situation to which he undoubtedly was emotionally
committed. [E.S.H.]

While still engaged on the book, Browne occasionally would express
a hope to resume petrological research when the task was done.
But the advances in petrology over the many years spent gathering
and arranging the data of Australian geology seemed finally to
daunt him. Instead, he turned to a subject to which, in 1945,
he had devoted another of his notable presidential addresses,
that of the Quaternary history of Australia. The tentative chronology
then proposed has been considerably refined in later years, not
least through increasing use of radiometric methods for dating,
without destroying the logic of Browne's scheme. These modern
developments he followed with keen and critical interest, an interest
dominated by geological sense. Problems of relatively recent geology,
the origin of terraces and the like, continued to hold Browne's
attention in his later years but really this last period was dominated
by Kosciusko.

A visit to Kosciusko in 1942 revived interests dormant since the
1920s and was followed by a more extensive survey in 1946 under
the auspices of a joint advisory committee of the Linnean and
Royal Zoological societies of New South Wales. Sponsored by the
newly-formed Kosciusko State Park Trust, the work resulted in
a useful reconnaissance report. Retirement brought opportunities
to extend these investigations and each summer from 1951 to 1955
Browne led parties of biologists and geologists in the field at
Kosciusko on behalf of the joint committee. Browne's main scientific
concern there lay in the evidence of Pleistocene glaciation, a
study made urgent in his view by spoliation,of the landscape through
human agencies. He saw himself, as citizen as well as scientist,
in the role of 'trustee for posterity'. His advocacy of restrictions
on the use of the summit area, eloquently expressed in the David
Memorial Lecture of 1952 and elsewhere, attracted vehement criticism
from those like the graziers who had long enjoyed rights to snow-leases.
But Browne was a doughty fighter for causes he believed in and
Kosciusko, to him, was indeed a precious heritage. Proclamation
in 1962 of the primitive area, though in extent less than half
that allowed by the park Act of 1944, owes much to Browne's efforts
as a publicist. When the joint committee was disbanded, Browne
and his wife continued to work privately in the region until advancing
years and failing health put a stop to their annual pilgrimages
after 1965.

The real measure of Browne's work on the record of Pleistocene
glaciation at Kosciusko is yet to be taken. His starting point,
not surprisingly, was where David finished. David had demonstrated
evidences of glacial action in the high country and related these
to a three-fold pattern. An early ice-sheet glaciation was held
to have been the most extensive, later activity being confined
to carving the present, valleys and finally to deepening of cirque-heads.
Browne adopted this view with deep conviction and over the years
proceeded to document details of the Kosciuskan landscape in such
terms. Few parts escaped his scrutiny on the ground even after
aerial photographs became available to make the work of survey
easier. No one had a closer familiarity with the terrain than
Browne but his work, and in particular that part relating to the
extent of what he took to be the earliest glaciation, has attracted
criticism from some geomorphologists who argue that the influence
of an ice-sheet was far more limited than Browne had it. The problem
is still not resolved though one must add that latterly Browne
found few supporters. He did not welcome the criticism but what
troubled him more was the virtual abdication of interest in geomorphology
by the geologists of his home state. Almost single-handed in New
South Wales, and with little success, he sought to re-kindle among
geologists something of that concern for the study of landscape
David had left his generation. Landscape, Browne argued, depended
on geology yet geomorphology was being abandoned to geographers,
many of whom in his view were inadequately trained in matters
of geology. The experience saddened his last years but he went
out fighting; he was at work on a new paper describing glacial
features and their distribution until a few days before his death.

Finally, another side of Browne's original work must be mentioned,
that relating to the practical applications of geology. As long
ago as 1911 he had joined his colleague Cotton in a visit to central
Queensland to investigate and report on coal prospects for the
Mt Morgan Gold Mining Co. Thereafter from time to time his expert
advice was sought by various authorities in charge of railways
and roads, chiefly in connection with materials problems. In his
retirement he accepted some commissions for consultancy work and
thus prospected for uranium and molybdenum in the New England
region as well as advising a syndicate interested in the petroleum
resources of the Illawarra district but these were minor compared
with Browne's involvement in engineering geology. In 1943 the
Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board began work for
a major new storage dam on the Warragamba River west of Sydney.
Browne and his colleague L. L. Waterhouse were engaged to advise
on the proposed site. Fortunately, manpower problems during the
war restricted the pace of constructional work for Browne and
Waterhouse soon discovered the chosen site was geologically unpromising.
A dam constructed there would be subject to considerable lateral
drainage through shallow fractures along the gorge. After detailed
investigation by boring confirmed these suspicions, they reported
adversely on the site and their opinion was supported by American
consultants. Browne and Waterhouse were then commissioned to extend
their work and search for a more suitable site. Waterhouse had
to withdraw for reasons of health soon after this phase began,
leaving Browne to continue with the support of Water Board staff.
By 1946 a satisfactory location that met all engineering and geological
requirements had been found further up the gorge. The capacity
of a dam at this new site would be slightly less than that originally
planned but in making public the Board's acceptance of the geological
advice the president, T. H. Upton, on 30 May 1946, paid tribute
to the efforts of both Browne and Waterhouse, adding that their
research had already reduced the estimated cost of construction
by £2 million. Browne's services as geological adviser were
retained until the dam was finished in 1960. Other, less well
known, facets of Browne's work as an engineering geologist include
his extensive investigations regarding a site for the single-arch
Gladesville Bridge over the Parramatta River, Sydney.

Browne's contributions to Australian science through work for
scientific societies are no less worthy of note than those made
by his research and teaching. His record of effort is indeed impressive.
On committees and councils he was admirable. Browne knew his own
mind and expressed his opinions with clarity and logic. His good
manners combined with a sensitive intelligence, that splendid
memory and a deep concern for precedent would gently restore sanity
to a discussion rendered aimless by colleagues with more zeal
than sense. Perhaps there lay the key to his notable contributions
to knowledge-a formidable grasp of his subject and great skill
in reasoned argument rather than any dependence on intuitive flashes.
But, for the societies he supported, Browne gave far more than
wise advice; he gave unsparingly of his time and effort.

A member of the Linnean Society of New South Wales for 64 years,
Browne served on its council from 1924 almost continuously until
1973 when he retired as councillor emeritus. During that time
he was twice president and at a difficult stage in the society's
history offered to act as honorary secretary, holding the post
from 1951 to 1966. The Royal Society of New South Wales enjoyed
his membership since 1913 and elected him an honorary member in
1969. On its council from 1929 to 1942, Browne was president of
the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1932-3 and for a session
acted as editorial secretary. vol. 99 of that society's Journal
and Proceedings was issued as the W. R. Browne Volume, containing
papers contributed by colleagues and former students. Earlier
he had received from the Royal Society of New South Wales the
Clarke Medal (1942) and its own medal for distinguished service
(1956), and had delivered to it the Clarke Memorial Lecture in
1949.

The Australian National Research Committee and ANZAAS claimed
his devoted support. Browne held the presidency of Section C (Geology)
at the Hobart congress (1949), was David Lecturer (1952) and Mueller
medallist (1960). For many years the Australian Journal of
Science profited from his work as an assistant editor. Again,
when the Geographical Society of New South Wales was founded in
1927 Browne accepted a place on its council and remained a councillor
until 1945. He held its presidency for two sessions (1929-30 and
1948-9) and was long an active member of the society's research
committee. At the time of his death Browne was an honorary member
of the Geographical Society of New South Wales. He was also a
founder-member of the Geological Society of Australia, its second
president (1955-6) and an honorary member since 1957. Browne's
distinguished contributions to Australian geology were recognized
too in his election to fellowship of the Australian Academy of
Science.

Browne was elected to fellowship of the Australian Academy of
Science in 1954, in the first elections to be held after the granting
of the Royal Charter which established the Academy. He immediately
took a leading part in stimulating the fellowship and Council
to recognize the need for a high level scientific study of the
Kosciusko region so as to provide an objective basis for determining
the effects of past land-use practices and future policy for this
and other alpine areas in southeast Australia. In 1956 he was
one of five who petitioned the Council to set up a committee 'charged
with the duty of enquiring into, and if possible establishing,
the immediate causes of the deterioration, suggesting means of
halting and remedying it' for the Kosciusko Tops country. A committee
was appointed in December 1956 to investigate the Snowy Mountains
area and the high mountains of Victoria, and reported back in
May 1957. Thus it was during Browne's membership of Council from
1957 to 1960 that the Academy became involved in discussions and
negotiations with government agencies, graziers, and other groups
which, despite the acrimony at many times evinced, did result
in much improved grazing and other land-use practices in the high
country being established by regulation. [E.S,.H.]

In June 1915 at Neutral Bay, Sydney, William Rowan Browne married
Olga Marian Pauss, daughter of Olav Pauss, then Consul for Norway
in Sydney. There were two daughters of the marriage, Margaret
Rowan (born 1916) and Helen Rowan (born 1919). Margaret Browne
graduated BArch (Sydney) in 1940 and now practises as an architect
in London. Helen Browne followed her father into science, taking
a Sydney BSc with first class honours and University Medal in
botany (1942). Following postgraduate research in botany she joined
the Women's Australian Air Force, and after demobilization moved
to the CSIRO in Canberra. Married in 1947 to F. H. Morley, a geneticist
also with CSIRO, Helen Morley died tragically in December 1976.

Olga Marian Browne died in September 1948. Later her husband and
daughters donated a sum of money to the University of Sydney to
establish a memorial prize in geology. The Olga Marian Browne
Prize is awarded for proficiency in fieldwork during the Second
Year course given in the department, of which the late Mrs Browne
was a graduate and from 1913 to 1915 curator of the geological
collections.

In 1950 Browne married Ida Alison Brown, senior lecturer in palaeontology
in the University of Sydney. Dr Ida Browne resigned from the university
staff shortly afterwards but both she and her husband continued
their active interests in research. Many scientifically fruitful
years were thus shared, she helping him in the field at Kosciusko,
he helping her with stratigraphical investigations at Yass and
on the south coast of New South Wales, until Dr Ida Browne's health
gave way. Her last years passed under constant medical attention
and the equally constant care of a devoted husband whom she survived
by little more than a year.

To conclude this record of a great Australian geologist, mention
ought to be made of the resolution by the Geological Society of
Australia to institute a W. R. Browne Medal. Appropriately, this
memorial medal will be awarded for distinguished service to Australian
geology. Steps are now being taken in the matter of design and
were a motto required one could hardly improve on Nullum quod
tetigit non ornavit. Dr Johnson's epitaph for his friend Oliver
Goldsmith applies equally to another native of Ireland, one who
also loved Latin but who came to enrich science and learning on
the other side of the world.